Trading Partner installs in mere minutes, and with our Trading Partner kits lets you add support for hundreds of retailers and trading partners in seconds. Trading Partner provides a fully automated platform that lets you create simple or sophisticated workflows of your EDI, letting you put EDI where it belongs - out of your mind. With advanced features like email notification and one of the most reliable engines in the industry, Trading Partner lets you finally take full advantage from the promise of EDI.
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EDI VAN
A Value Added Network (EDI VAN) can be described as an organization
whose purpose is to enable communication between parties. The
EDI VAN was born out of the need for companies that used EDI to
easily and affordably exchange EDI messages with multiple recipients. In
this form the EDI VAN was nothing more than an electronic post
office; as adoption of the Internet for B2B communication grew,
the need for the EDI VAN was greatly reduced; but even today the
EDI VAN provides a valuable service - especially to smaller businesses. It
is quite common for an EDI VAN to become useful when an organization
has EDI volume with between 4 and 6 trading partners. As
we will see, the value of the EDI VAN has varied greatly.
How an EDI VAN Works
As we stated earlier, an EDI VAN is nothing more than an
electronic, commercial version of the US Postal Service. Just
like the Postal Service, an EDI VAN receives mail from senders,
sorts it for intended recipients, and delivers the mail to
the recipient's mailbox. For the EDI VAN the messages
are simply electronic EDI messages instead of paper mail. The
EDI VAN uses electronic "mailboxes" for each trading
partner that uses the EDI VAN service. A trading partner
using the EDI VAN transmits electronic messages either through
a direct dial-up connection or through another Internet connection
type. The electronic messages are then sorted to the
receivers' mailboxes until they are called for, or sent to,
the recipient. An electronic mailbox at an EDI VAN
can be used whether you only send EDI messages, receive them,
or both. The EDI VAN usually allows each customer to "pick
up" their incoming messages at the same time that they
drop off outgoing messages. The EDI VAN typically also
allows for 24-hour per day, 7-day per week access to your
electronic mailbox. This workflow eliminates a number
of problems associated with establishing direct communication
links with all of your trading partners. Among some
of the advantages businesses receive from the use of an EDI
VAN are the following:
The Evolution of the EDI VAN
As the adoption of the Internet as a means of exchanging communication
between businesses has grown, the EDI VAN has come under attack
by new technologies and new means of exchanging data. FTP
was one of the first 'Internet friendly' communication protocols
that the EDI VAN began to support; but with the advent of the AS2
communications protocol it became possible for companies to connect
directly to their trading partners using secure protocols, bypassing
the EDI VAN altogether. As a result of these technological
developments, the EDI VAN has been forced to add a lot of services
aimed at increasing the value proposition, but revenues in this
sector of the EDI market have been significantly reduced.
First Exposure to EDI VAN
For most businesses their first exposure to EDI will be through
an EDI VAN. Regardless of your company size and expertise
with EDI, however, using an EDI VAN could still be an important
aspect of your EDI strategy. As the adoption of new technologies
has changed the landscape, the EDI VAN has become an aggregator
of small businesses. The EDI VAN then can be very useful to
both small companies that are adopting EDI for the first time, and
to larger organizations that exchange EDI data with small businesses.
Is an EDI VAN
Right for You?
Whether you should work with an EDI VAN depends on several factors. Some
retailers only accept EDI through an EDI VAN; in these cases you have
little choice. For the majority of businesses using an EDI VAN
will come down to simple question. An EDI VAN allows you to
get set up quickly and easily, since you only need to communicate with
the EDI VAN; the EDI VAN in turn is already set up for communications
with your trading partners. The other side of this equation has the
cost of the EDI VAN. Since an EDI VAN charges you by the volume
of EDI data sent, the cost of using an EDI VAN will vary with how much
EDI data you send. The question of using an EDI VAN therefore
comes down to ease of use and expense.